Shizuka Sugiyama interview

Shizuka Sugiyama

Sportsnavi interviewed JEWELS fighter Shizuka Sugiyama today. Shizuka has fallen on hard times since beginning her MMA career with five straight wins. She's lost two of her last three fights. Then while preparing for a Shoot Boxing match scheduled for the July 31 JEWELS show, she suffered a broken collarbone and separated shoulder in training. She will return to face Esui on the Dec. 17 Korakuen Hall show. This could be a pivotal match in Shizuka's MMA career. The 23 year old Shizuka is from Yokohama and trains at Zendokai. She is very good friends with veteran fighter Misaki Takimoto who also trains at Zendokai Yokohama and Saori Ishioka who trains at another branch of Zendokai. What they all have in common is their primary training is in karate. Shizuka works as a Phys Ed teacher at Tokai. She was looking to try martial arts and Zendokai is down the road from her home. She didn't know at the time that she would become an MMA fighter. She had played volleyball as a child and played rugby in college. In fact, she still plays rugby in her spare time today. So she entered Zendokai's annual karate tournament and was spotted by JEWELS and later on was invited to try MMA. Apparently she had discussed trying MMA with Takimoto. She figured she'd try it and if she lost her first match, she'll do something else. So though Shizuka won her first few matches, she didn't take it all that seriously. She was doing it for fun. Now she says she takes it more seriously. She says she is ready to go after recovering from the injury. She says she's not preparing especially for Esui. But it's interesting that Esui is a former pro wrestler because Shizuka is a big New Japan Pro Wrestling fan. She says she likes big guys. It makes me wonder why she hasn't tried pro wrestling herself. It's not that unusual. Mika Nagano does both. Shizuka Sugiyama says she is ready for triumphant return this Friday.